


Sweet Irony

by Deeg



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, F/M, Hurts So Good, I Will Go Down With This Ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-07 22:57:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19859404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deeg/pseuds/Deeg
Summary: Disclaimer: All rights and content belong to Masashi Kishimoto, breaker of my soul to this day.Originally posted on FF.Net and as is; I apologise!#notoverthesetwo #neverwillbe #thatfinalsceneomg





	Sweet Irony

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All rights and content belong to Masashi Kishimoto, breaker of my soul to this day.
> 
> Originally posted on FF.Net and as is; I apologise! 
> 
> #notoverthesetwo #neverwillbe #thatfinalsceneomg

**As the moon shines**   
**I am jealous of my own shadow.**   
**As my shadow melts together with your**   
**shadow on the snow**   
**I watch it dejectedly.**   
**\- Shadows**

As a writer, you are a conneisseur of pretty words and thought-provoking imagery. In fact, the more provocative, the better.

You are also, by trope definition, a fount of knowledge on all things written and all it entails, from characterisation to genre (even if your choices on such matters tends to leave something to be desired at times).

As a man, you are more fond personally of those opposing yet oft meshed genres known as romance and tragedy. Yes, those are the two you find yourself drawn to, time and time again. You're not entirely sure why you are (or maybe you do, but there's no amount of sake in the world for dealing with that level of _self-reflection_ ), though you do know that if anyone found out that you, the boisterous, strong, perverted Toad Sage, had a true soft spot for tragic romance, they would likely laugh until they were half dead.

(Orochimaru certainly did, when he realised...well, everything, all those decades ago).

It's the only explanation you can think of at this moment, though, that makes sense. This moment, so oft repeated over the years that it is like the twisted steps of a well known dance. With her. Always with her. Perfect, tragic, delightful, brazen, brash, torturous, beautiful, wicked goddess, spun from sunlight and caramel and butterscotch, yet as cold and painful to look at, let alone touch, as the frozen snow around you both, the brightness of it marred only by your shadows as they dance and mingle in a most intimate embrace. Almost as if they are taunting you, both of you, with what could be, if only you would both take that final step.

The shadows taunt you with every hurt and failure you've ever felt, leaving you with a sense of utter dejection and with it, something almost like hatred. For them, for yourself, for her, even as you smile your lecherous smile and fool about with an exuberance that is far too juvenile on such an ageing countenance.

And yet you still love her, utterly and completely. You know she loves you too; she would be at your back before your heart could even beat another beat if you were in trouble. And yet...

And yet it could never be.

Because life, you have learned, is really one big tragedy full of yearnings and what's and what if's and in the end, settling for less than half. Perhaps that is why you are so fond of romantic tragedy, though you never let a soul in on your sentimental heart. You have a distinct feeling that she knows of it, though she doesn't press the issue. She doesn't have enough evidence to really do so, and if there's one good thing about your princess, it's that at her best, she tries her hardest to avoid getting into situations without knowing as much as she possibly can. She never used to, but age has that effect. Still, now and then in those unguarded moments that are almost sweet (just sweet, not bittersweet), you catch her watching you with an odd, bemused smile, as if she's not quite sure whether she should go with the notion and tease you with the accusation.

Hell, you yourself can hardly believe it sometimes, and that's likely part of the reason you play the part of the heroic, lecherous sage so consumately, why you forcibly quash those less than manly notions when they arise, stamping them down and suffocating them with a figurative pillow every morning when you wake up. You are human in the end, after all, and if humans are experts at anything, it is the ability to posture and lie.

Because in the end, isn't your life just a great, fat lie anyway? An untruth perpetuated over and over when you awaken every morning? A fib that reasserts itself with steadfast vigour with every failure you've endured? A fallacy that makes itself soul-breakingly known every time you stand before those graves, in front of the memorial stone, and everytime you see her?

_"Then just say it...say it...say it and I won't go, hime."_

You remember those words as clearly as if you spoke them not five seconds ago, and you remember the way your shadows melted together in the chilly breeze and the setting sun along with those words. Taunting and teasing you in that one moment where you weren't a coward, when you lay your cards bare and waited for her to restack them how she wished. Yes, when you weren't a coward-- you, the infamously perverted, gallant sage.

As a writer, you love irony. You are also well versed in the ways of irony; thus, you know to keep it at arm's length. You know failure to acknowledge it only invites disaster. After all, it is that failure to acknowledge irony that often results in the endings of those so called romantic tragedies.

_Idiot._

She never did say it. She still doesn't say it, even if you both know she feels as you do. You're both incredibly alike in that way, in so many ways. Maybe that's why you'll never truly be. Maybe that's why you've never really been.

Maybe that's why you'll both spend forever watching your shadows dance and tease, melted together in a forever embrace of what could have been.


End file.
